JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – There is still no agreement in place for the Johnstown Mill Rats collegiate-age baseball team to lease the City of Johnstown-owned Sargent’s Stadium at the Point during the 2026 summer season.
The latest negotiations between the parties took place Monday morning at City Hall. It was the first meeting between the groups after last week’s municipal elections that involved races for mayor and five Johnstown City Council seats.
City Manager Art Martynuska and Ryan Gindlesperger, a co-owner of the Mill Rats, both said they are “hopeful” a deal can be reached. But Gindlesperger also said there is “frustration” on the team’s side.
Days earlier, the Mill Rats posted an online statement that, in the club’s opinion, the negotiation process involved “politically motivated moves and greed by the current management in the City of Johnstown.”
“Up until these past couple of days when we took a little bit more of an aggressive action, I don’t feel that we were being taken seriously on this,” Gindlesperger said in an interview after the meeting.
“They were not understanding the sense of urgency that we have in terms of being able to get this done and move forward as an organization to sell sponsorships and tickets and do the things that we need to do to get ready for the 2026 season.”
Martynuska said the administration always planned to move forward with the contract talks. He said the city “kind of got caught blindsided that we were told the negotiations have stopped. That wasn’t the message that we conveyed.”
He described the meeting as “productive.”
“We vetted out a lot of the issues that were in the newest draft of the contract,” Martynuska said. “We still have to vet out some other issues before we finalize anything. But we’re moving in the right direction. Everybody was very cooperative. Everybody stated their opinions. It never really got heated or anything like that. People were passionate, but it was all very respectful.”
Last year, the Mill Rats paid $15,000 to lease the stadium, along with being charged an amusement tax on tickets sold.
The city originally proposed increased fees of $17,000, $21,000 and $23,000 over a new three-year deal, according to Martynuska.
Gindlesperger said the team offered $16,000 a year going forward, plus 20% of sponsorship revenue for anything over $175,000 and 5% of concessions sales straight off the top. The offer “significantly increased what the revenue would be to the city,” according to Gindlesperger.
The administration proposed letting the Mill Rats continue doing their own advertising sales that the city could “supplement” with its own ads, according to Martynuska.
“That way we didn’t have to put the arm on anybody else more financially,” Martynuska said.
Gindlesperger felt that would place the city in “direct competition” with the team.
“That is our biggest sticking point,” Gindlesperger said.
Overall, Martynuska said that the city needs to “be careful about what we’re going to do for subsidizing a for-profit corporation.”
Gindlesperger said that the new ownership group has invested more than $150,000 since taking over in 2023. He said the games attract people downtown who spend money at hotels, restaurants and other vendors, thus providing a “huge economic value here” beyond only stadium fees.
